To use a wireless NIC as a accesspoint in M0n0wall (FreeBSD 6.3-based) it need to support something called hostap-mode.
I dont know if this is some official feature of the cards, like ad-hoc or infrastructure, but I haven't seen any card listing it is hostap-compatible so I think its something else.

Anyway, there are supposed to be cards that handle it and cards that dont handle it.....does anyone know how to know this?
Does for example this cheap, in swedish stores available, gigabyte-card support it?

I can't look at the card you posted; site seems down. You first have to verify what type connection your card has: if it's RP-SMA or RP-TNC. The hi-gain antenna you purchase must be able to mate with your card via a correct connector.

In any case, even if they're not compatible, there are lots of adaptors available that will facilitate mating a card with an antenna.

As a sidenote: after you've determined what type chipset your card uses and then checked the BSD HCLs, your next step should be to check the BSD manual for the particular driver to determine it's supported capabilities. For example, after determining that your card uses a ralink chipset and then confirming that this card is supported by the ral(4) driver in FreeBSD, you should have checked the ral manual page. There you'll find that indeed, that card's hostap capabilities work under Free.

Ah, thats how to search for stuff like this...find what driver supports it, and then read up on that particular drivers capabilities....thanks a lot, I'll try to remember that one

About the antenna, thanks, but this damn card, not even on gigabytes own site, says nothing about the connectors
I think I'll take the chanse though, the card (Gigabyte Wireless 54Mbps Mini-PCI GN-WI01GS) is very cheap and supports WPA2, and available in a store nearby.

Not sure about this particular wireless card, but most of the pci, usb card I know only support WEP, not WPA when operating in AP mode.

If you really need an wireless AP, consider setting up RADIUS or VPN server in your BSD machine, since WEP is a joke, close to useless

Ouch, you mean the NIC itself can brag about handling WPA and WPA2, but when used as an AP that feature is no longer possible in the hardware???

How to know stuff like that then?

The easiest thing then, if this is really true, is probably to just buy an AP and plug in to one of the routerports....I'll see how I'll do.
Setting up some strange server on OpenBSD probably ain't the easiest....dont have any wireless in that machine eitehr and dont even know if one would fit (its a small VIA Mini-ITX 800MHz). EDIT: Its got USB's anyway.

Strange anyway M0n0wall has settings for WPA2 and stuff if it cant be used, or maybe its just for the few occations when you'd like your router to be a wireless client also.

As a sidenote: after you've determined what type chipset your card uses and then checked the BSD HCLs, your next step should be to check the BSD manual for the particular driver to determine it's supported capabilities. For example, after determining that your card uses a ralink chipset and then confirming that this card is supported by the ral(4) driver in FreeBSD, you should have checked the ral manual page. There you'll find that indeed, that card's hostap capabilities work under Free.

What about this then? VT6105M
Its not listed at all under either 6.3 or 7.0, yet it works in M0n0wall (based on 6.3).

How to find what driver THAT NIC uses....have three of them on my very very tiny ALIX machine (AMD Geode). Would like to check if it can handle VLAN's...so I can play router on a stick if I feel to.

Ok, thanks, but if what is said above is correct (that is, no or almost no wireless cards can handle WPA2 when acting as an AP, even if WPA2 is stated in specifications), then I wont bother with any wireless. Intead buy a external AP and plug in.

Can you require IPSec on a wireless AP?
Thats cool....but as an AP for visitors, it might be cumbersome for them to set up IPSec policys in windows (or probably even worse on other OS's) just to access my powerful 2Mb line for a few minutes or so

Also, it doesnt come without reason when the wireless card operates in ad hoc mode, the only security mode it supports is WEP, though in infratructure mode, it can connect to WPA/WPA2 AP without any problem. Have a look at the page 39:

Ok, but that is some totally different card/chips?
Might not be so on all wireless NIC's, or on the particular gigabyte I'm looking at (GN-WI01GS)?

That is not really important. Your card is based on ralink chipset. hostapd(8) links to ral(4) - meaning
someone tested ralink based card and confirmed that hostapd works with it. Authenticator types here are
not really important - wpa2/wep are at higher level of operation and there should not be any problems using
ralink based cards under hostapd with WPA2 configured on curent FreeBSD net80211 code.